


Thin Skinned

by Sharkie02



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: No major character death but impending death is talked about, Sad Sasha Hours, Speculation on how Sasha's condition looks/is, because I have a lot of thoughts about it, mentions of dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharkie02/pseuds/Sharkie02
Summary: Time is moving on and Sasha has a question for Azu, it’s not something she has to do of course, but if she wants too, Sasha would appreciate it.
Relationships: Azu & Sasha Racket, Brock & Sasha Racket
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Thin Skinned

The wall against her hand felt rougher than it should have done, covered in sharp littles spikes, similar to the way her hair had felt rough and coarse, and it had run down her back and some of it over her shoulder, a little in front of her eyes making it difficult to see but regardless, when you’re on the run from a small army of rough-looking kids decked out in knives and heavier hits than your own, everything feels just that little bit, sharper, finer, more defined. 

But maybe that’s just Sasha.

It was an open debate as to whether it was due to the couple of easy turns she recognised from her knowledge of the stark and dried city, or just the gang’s own incompetence, but she eventually became quicker than an Atlantic swimmer smothered in goose fat in a particularly fast current as she ran through the shadows of the city, so it wasn’t like it made a difference; she was out of eyeshot whether they liked it or not.

Skidding right down a thin alleyway, her tattered loose blouse fluttering in her step, hair tangling behind, she hopped over a crate stack before looking up the grey wall, covered in pipes leading to somewhere — not even necessarily to the building — but still going to a place. Sasha began to climb. She leapt up on the crates then jumped once again with one foot landing on a copper pipe, the other resting on a smoother flaking wall, and her two hands hit flat on the windowsill, steadying herself before desperately trying to jimmy the musty window in front of her open, pale calloused hands scratching along the lines of the dark brown wood, looking for a way in without actually paying attention to her surroundings.

She didn’t really think about what could be in the room, but she wasn’t at all surprised when a dark figure shuffled clumsily to the window that had never seen sunlight. Equally pale hands — with the added habit of chewed nails — pushed past her own, not roughly but just strong enough to do what she couldn’t, lifting the window up towards the ceiling.

She pulled herself through the space and scrambled to right herself, shaking like a dog to get the grime off and grimacing when it only served to mess her hair further. It had felt easier doing so, getting herself together, knowing that there was someone near her, someone who stood directly in front of her to remind her that she had in fact climbed up the side of a wall and through a window. Brock stood facing Sasha and leaned against the side of the window with his arms crossed, his dirty blonde hair just short enough to reach his ears.

“Hey Brock, cut my hair?”

“How short?”

\----------

It feels wet and dry all at the same time, and even after so long the smell makes her choke a little, bile rushing to her mouth, damp and solid. It’s the strangest thing, and by that she means it’s the most awfully ironic thing, because before now she’d wake up in a cold sweat after having nightmares of what Barret had gotten her to do, and now she wakes up covered in lukewarm congealed blood that has ruined more clothes than her entire lifetime down in Other London, as a result of doing something she wanted to do, something she decided to do with her own dumb fucking autonomy. Waking up in the morning is probably the worst — not for the smell, the damp, the slow pulling away previously white clothes where the blood had grabbed to it tight, making it harder to remove and also very likely to start bleeding again if she didn’t peel it away off her body in patches and clumps slowly — but her thoughts, her dry and wet thoughts that were enough to make her despise mornings.

But we need to keep moving, as Grizzop usually says. It’s nice that Grizzop has some place in her morning brain; better him than anything else she can think of. Breathing deeply and looking for a solid grip on the bedside table Sasha pulls herself to her feet.

She has to pull herself along the table or lean on the wall in the mornings, and perhaps when she sleeps she gets so close to really being dead that her body needs to remind itself what movement is when she wakes up and starts moving. It sounds entirely plausible, so that’s probably it. It’s still an effort though, dragging yourself along your room whilst knowing full well that before this, you could have jumped out the window and been where you wanted to be in seconds.

Breathing only served to realise that she can hold her breath for longer now, for better or for worse, and she’d be good at swimming these days. Maybe it would have benefitted her to be in this state while she was on the small dinky boat with Hamid and Zolf in the terrible storm, but then again she probably wouldn’t have made it Cairo if that was the case.

Slowly pushing open the door and padding into the corridor, she turns to her left, knowing exactly where to go. She’s done it enough recently, it’s becoming the most normal and repetitive part of her life — waking up covered in blood that’s half pouring, half drying, heart lazily relearning how to pump red rum around her thin gangly body, then going to find any kind of healer or non-healer she can, which is simple enough.

A small wander later in the temple and she finds a healer willing to cast Inflict Wounds on her, but not without a look of concern that she shrugs off easily. She can feel her skin growing out and stitching itself together almost like plant roots clinging to each other in the dirt and recalls not feeling skin move in that much detail when Zolf used to heal her, and she starts to think of another maybe before deciding against it. There are way too many maybes and possiblys in her short, short life, so many things she isn’t entirely certain of, and fuck, she hates it.

Returning to her room, she pulls off the bloody bed clothes and bathes in what she asked for as quick as she can, not wanting to linger on the how cold the supposedly warm water feels against her white skin, then shuffles into her normal roguish outfit, dumping the bed clothes into the small water basin, and she pulls off the bedsheets and drops them in as well, taking a quick moment to watch the dried red flake off and dissolve, curling smoothly through the water. Then she leaves to go find Azu.

It doesn’t take too long and she doesn’t even have to ask people; the confusion of the new recruits she passes clearly says ‘I have seen a neon orc with a large animal walk by’, so Sasha figures out where the pink Paladin is without pushing social interactions and that does her just fine.

Eventually she finds Azu in the garden of the Hospital of Aphrodite, a small space surrounded by tall walls and with a few flowers in troughs flanking the doors opening to it. She’s leaning against Topaz’s large form, lighting it up with the glow of her armour with her great axe resting on her lap, her eyes dazed and resting on a nice bunch of purple flowers that would make a florist flush with pride, and Sasha feels that it would be rude to interrupt even though she really wants too.

“Azu?” It comes out like a squeak and it annoys her.

Turning her head slightly, Azu looks to her through lidded eyes. “Oh, Sasha. Hello. How are you feeling today?” 

You see, the great thing about sand is that it is very kickable and easy to feign interest in, which is exactly what Sasha does.

“Oh, yeah! I’m good, I’m good, yeah, uh— blood didn’t stain my night shirt too bad while I was sleeping, so it should be wearable by this afternoon. How, um... how are you doing?”

Azu shuffles along the side of the camel slightly, her armour leaving small dunes in the sand, and she pats the space in the grainy floor marked out by the intricate details left from her bright pink neon armour. “I’m doing quite alright, and so is Topaz. Come, sit, the wind isn’t too harsh here.”

The sand covers up sounds quite well and the rogue pads across it to reach the paladin with silent ease, sitting mechanically down next to her companion (and her companion’s companion). Watching patiently as Azu leans back against her camel and closes her eyes to the sky, Sasha knows what she’s being patient for, her own damn courage.

“Azu, can I... ask you something? If that’s alright, that is, ‘cause I don’t want to, like, bother you with this, you know?”

Without opening her eyes but with the same sure energy as so many times before, Azu replies, “Of course! Ask away, friend.”

Sasha settles down into the sand and the fluffy camel behind her. “So I’ve only got, like, a month left to live right?”

Azu opens her eyes fully at this, turning to face the rogue with a very concerned expression. “Sasha, we’re going to try and help you. There is no certainty in your death.”

“There’s only so much we can do, and what we want is being held by dragons — or a dragon — but still a dragon, and the other option is to blow me up? I might not even be dead enough to be revived, and what happens then?!” As Sasha talks her hands clench and unclench, fiddling with her black clothes, her shoulders rising at every word.

“But we can still try.” The paladin drops her hands around her axe and squeezes. 

Deflating, Sasha replies, “I— I know. But my point is, in theory... if I do, like, kick the bucket some way or another, I... I want...”

“What is it that you want, Sasha? We will do our very best to help you, and I will do so as a Paladin of Aphrodite, and as your friend.”

“I want you to bury me by the ocean.”

“Oh… Sasha, I—”

Sasha’s gesticulation becomes a little wilder, pulling out her knives and shuffling them like a deck of cards. “Well, I mean, you don’t have to, of course. You— you could, like, I don’t know... let Hamid burn me up or something, that’s alright too, I guess. But if you do, anywhere there’s water would be nice— more specifically, wherever there’s eels? Eels come from the sea, right? Or do they come from rivers?” Sasha pauses, and lets the next words tumble out. “I never really thought about where all the eels came from! They kinda just appeared in really shitty looking trailers— you know the ones? That’re made of wood and look like they were pushed into the ocean, or river, or whatever—”

“Sasha.” Azu turns to stare at her. “I would— I would be honoured to bury you by the ocean. Any preference of place?”

“Oh, neat. Um, not really? Though somewhere back in England might be nice. You can, like, put whatever you want to on me plant-wise, you know? Because you grow things from the dead, right?”

“Ah, yes, but usually smaller, wider growing crops, like potatoes or flowers. An apple tree might be nice, if you would like.”

“An apple tree, yeah. That sounds alright. Can I... ask another favour?”

“Go ahead.”

“If you can, like, write a small plaque with my name on it and, uh, the name ‘Brock’ on it too... that would be cool.”

“I shall see what I can do, although I might have to go to someone else for that.”

“Thanks.”

Finally she relaxes a little more, leaning back into the golden brown fur and raising her hand to block the heavy sun out. Her hand is glowing around the edges like an awful orange halo, dark blue veins seeming darker alongside the terribly visible ridges of finger bones.

At least she had a say in where she’d end up.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this wasn't ooc and I wrote the characters well enough!  
> Major thanks to Spudato for betaing/proof reading this as well as being incredible patient because boy did this need work on before I talked to them.


End file.
